


Let her be...

by Lilachigh



Category: Anne Boleyn - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-19
Updated: 2011-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-23 21:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilachigh/pseuds/Lilachigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anne awaits her death in the Tower....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let her be...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innocentsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innocentsmith/gifts), [Who wanted Ann](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Who+wanted+Ann).



For Innocentsmith who wanted Anne and Elizabeth and their relationship. Hope this fits the bill

Let her be…. By Lilachigh

 

The state departments in the Tower of London were cold, even on a warm May day. The stone walls held all the damp and chill of the long winter that had just passed by, slowly, so very slowly. They seemed to absorb water from the Thames and behind the tapestries little trickles ran greenly to the floor. A miserable fire tried to burn in the vast grate but made little impression.

Anne stood at the window, staring up at the sky, ignoring the sounds of the hammering and cursing as the scaffold for her was extended and cleaned of her brother’s blood. Well, George was in a better place now as she would soon be.

She found herself smiling and put her hands to her mouth to hide it. This dreadful hysteria that kept finding her at weaker moments had to be controlled. She was going to die. Nothing would stop it. Henry had his mimsy-pimsy new girl whose blonde prettiness would never remind him of her, the woman he had given up everything, his wife, his religion, his very soul to possess. Sometimes she found it funny. Oh, not the dying or the lovely boys who had gone to their death on trumped up charges, but the fact that Henry, who could have anything in his life by clicking his fingers, could not get the one thing he wanted – a legitimate son.

She wondered what would have happened if he had agreed to see her one last time. Could she, even now, have persuaded him to let her retire to a convent, live out the rest of her life quietly. No – she shook her head. A quiet life had never been her fate. So what had it been for? To bring down a nice, kind-hearted woman, to tear a country apart. It seemed a big responsibility for God to have given one poor woman. She smiled again. A cosmic joke!

The door opened and the guards ushered in her ladies-in-waiting. Anne turned, all smiles gone, her dark eyes suddenly sharp.

“Is she here?”

One of the ladies was at her side, her finger to her lips. “No one must know, My Lady.”

Anne sank to the floor, her black skirt billowing around her as the door opened once more and a woman she did not know hurried in, clutching a bundle to her chest. A bundle that wriggled and fought, one little shoe kicking out violently until it was joined by a second and the child slid to the floor, an angry red face staring out from a white cap that was fighting to cover errant ginger curls.

Anne burst out laughing, aware of the horrified looks being exchanged over her head, but unable to help herself. The angry glare, the rosebud mouth, the red hair – oh Henry, such a child of yours.

She reached into a pocket and found the tiny bracelet she had been guarding for so long. She held out her hand but the little girl, a few months off her third birthday, put both of hers behind her back and shook her head.

“Wise child,” Anne murmured. “Beware of anyone offering you gifts, Elizabeth. They always come with conditions.”

Suddenly she realised that the dark eyes that were gazing at her so seriously were like to those she saw in the mirror every day. Not Henry’s eyes then. So not all Tudor.

“Mama!” The child said abruptly as she remembered a softer time, hugs, kisses and marchpane candies. “I am Lizbet. I am a Princess.”

“No, you’re not. You’re Lady Elizabeth!” one of the women said, her voice scared, peering over her shoulder to make sure the guards were still earning their vast bribes by looking the other way.

Anne held out the bracelet again but the little girl ignored it. She marched up to her mother and sat on her lap, her weight solid and warm against the woman’s cold limbs. Anne felt a pain shoot through her that she knew was worse than anything she would feel when the sword took her head. She would never see her daughter grow up, never know if she would survive  
She bent her head as Elizabeth raised hers and felt the fleeting touch of lips on her cheek. Then the woman was rushing forward, clutching the child from the floor, whisking her away, smothering her shouts of anger under her cloak. And Anne was left, her fingers holding the kiss to her cheek, all her prayers now for the child – for her to be allowed to grow up, marry, have a quiet, happy life somewhere deep in the country, far away from the court and all the politics that involved. Far away from death, love and treachery.

But like most of Anne’s prayers, this would not be answered.


End file.
